


On Following

by felinefelicitations



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Asexual Character, Asexual Thanatos, Battle, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Historical Fantasy, Leaving Home, M/M, Oral Sex, Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Power Dynamics, Prince / Soldier, Returning Home, Self-Sacrifice, Single POV, Trauma, blatant abuse of roman history to make an historical fantasy au, no betas we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:01:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28027434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/felinefelicitations/pseuds/felinefelicitations
Summary: Being in the prince’s legion--the sixth cohort,somehow--is not so different from being in training. He is still the youngest. He keeps his mouth shut unless he’s asked; he listens. He learns. There is so much to learn, every day, always.(The prince would not remember him; it has been eight years. His skin is burnt and his hair is short and he is not eight years old anymore.)
Relationships: Ares/Thanatos (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 62
Kudos: 182





	On Following

**Author's Note:**

> *emerges from my cave to offer up another fic*
> 
> hey guys have you ever thought about how much gay pining you can pack into one soldier here's my 10k essay
> 
> big shoutout to the crew for yelling about this one too, what a wild two days
> 
> forgive me for all the sins i have committed against roman history, may all the ghosts spin in their graves at the thought of kings and princes running the show. this is NOT a roman history au, but it is strongly roman flavoured because ares is a rome boy and it is very fun to play in that sandbox.

**1.**

Thanatos is fifteen, lies he's not.

The recruiter looks at him and Thanatos looks back, steady. It's lack of confidence that gives away lies, that is what his twin says. His twin says he's a terrible liar.

(Somewhere, his twin is furious and hurt.)

(Not just his twin.)

Thanatos has never been more sure of anything.

"Let's see how you do," the recruiter says.

**2.**

_"Thank you," the prince says._

_And, "Easy, easy. It's over."_

_Slips the knife, bloody, from his hands._

**3.**

Thanatos is the smallest. He lied. The others didn't.

He works harder to make up for it. Two years won't mean much, anyway. He is here for a reason.

(He works harder to forget what he left behind--a soft bed, a mother, two brothers, a friend who could have been more than a friend. Plains that ripple with poppies in early summer, endless skies, the horses.)

He pretends not to know how to hold a bow. He makes himself fumble. The inside of his forearm is covered in bruises.

He does not want to be only an archer. Archery is nothing without a horse.

He makes himself better with a sword. He makes sure he does not falter. He listens to the older soldiers, when he does not fall asleep from exhaustion, and he learns to read because there are books that have strategy and history and things officers know. He fills every second he can because it is not thinking about

( _tension, feather brushing his cheek, release, laughter as he guides with only his knees, riding to grab the grouse where it has fallen from the sky_ )

home.

**4.**

It is competitive, the prince's legion. Very few trainees are allowed, and they must all of them be the best. It is not unusual for none to be admitted to any cohort in the prince’s legion.

Thanatos will manage it. A year must be enough. He cannot bear to fail, now.

Not everyone who joins wants that. Some of them just want the steady pay, the promise of citizenship. They don't need to get chosen for the prince's legion.

Thanatos is the smallest; he is sixteen to their eighteen. He sticks out. His hair is white, his skin is brown from a life under an unforgiving sun, his mouth stumbles over sounds that come easy for the others, though less than when he arrived. He does not know the capital like them, or the stories they tell, but he has been learning.

He sticks out, but he listens well and he makes sure to remember everyone. He makes sure to remember what they're afraid of, what they miss, what they love. He remembers who hates who what week. He stays out of fights and rivalries, but he knows who is in them. He keeps his mouth shut unless someone asks him what he thinks; people come to talk to him because they know he won’t spill their secrets.

(He does what his older brother does. He misses his older brother.)

"The prince saved my mother," Thanatos says, when people ask why he's here. It is a good reason.

It's true.

(He cut his hair for this. Cuts it. They don’t think of hair here the way they do at home. He apologizes to his mother for it every day; he knows it won't matter until he says it to her face.)

(He does not know when he will get to say it to her face.)

There is a test, a demonstration, at the end of training. The prince and his red, red cloak. His sister and her deep blue. There are mock battles, and there are individual contests.

(If Thanatos fails, he will apologize to his mother much sooner than he wants.)

Only the best get chosen for the prince’s men.

Thanatos knows what people want. He knows what they love and what they miss and who they hate. He has listened and listened and listened for a year.

People come to him. People trust him. People know what Thanatos wants from this demonstration.

Best, Thanatos knows, does not mean just the best with a sword, with a bow, with a sling, or with a spear. There are mock battles for a reason. There’s more to _best_ than individual skill.

Three days to show all of a year’s work.

Thanatos wonders if it will be enough.

**5.**

_“She is to have a place within your court. She will advise you,” the prince says, fifteen and imperious despite having been stabbed the day before. “So this does not happen again.”_

_“Very well,” Lord Hades says._

**6.**

Three days. Thanatos is sore and tired. He wants nothing more than to sleep for the next week.

The last event is archery. There are very few trainees left at all; the prince and his sister do not enjoy having their time wasted.

He picks a bow. He tests the balance of the arrows until he finds three he can bear. He does not let himself look at where the prince and his sister are sitting. He does not let himself think about how little control he has. He does not let himself think about going home.

He cannot let himself fail.

It’s not a bow like his.

(His bow is beautiful. It is compact; he has painted the wood with poppies like the ones that ripple across the plains. It takes much more strength and surety to draw than the ones here. He wonders—

He does not wonder.

He has three arrows and three targets and he has grown up with a bow in his hands. He is tired and sore; it does not matter.

He could do this dead.

(He misses the plains, the horses, he misses his family, he misses—

He has held a bow longer than he has memory.

He does not miss.

**7.**

Being in the prince’s legion--the sixth cohort, _somehow_ \--is not so different from being in training. He is still the youngest. He keeps his mouth shut unless he’s asked; he listens. He learns. There is so much to learn, every day, always.

(The prince would not remember him; it has been eight years. His skin is burnt and his hair is short and he is not eight years old anymore.)

He does not see the prince much anyway; he is only a foot soldier and a legion is very large.

**8.**

Five years.

(He could go home when they aren't campaigning.)

(He doesn't, and he does not let himself think about why.)

Five years.

(The prince’s cloak is still just as red; redder. He’s older, and the feeling in Thanatos’ chest twists different, now; it burns the way his dreams did at thirteen.

He doesn’t have words for the feelings, but he knows how to show them.)

He manages to promote through centuriae, then cohorts. He manages honors. He manages not to die.

(It's giving up horses; it's giving up endless skies and plains rippling with poppies; it's giving up--

He keeps his eyes down when the prince addresses them.

(He doesn’t see the prince’s eyes linger on him.

He's a prince, and Thanatos was (is) only a boy who grew up on horseback with a bow in his hand.)

He keeps his eyes down, but the prince's cloak at his shoulder is still as red as Thanatos remembers, more. It ripples in the breeze, and it takes everything in him, when Thanatos is on front lines before a battle, not to reach out and grab it when it does.

Ares is a prince; Thanatos is not.

**9.**

Standards are important. Thanatos likes the legion’s standard--the brilliant red flag, the gold she-wolf emblazoned on the fabric, the eagle it is topped with. It is a familiar fixture in a battle, much the way the centuriae's medallion standards are, a sure way to reorient because lines break even when they shouldn't.

Like the line now.

Standards are important; it doesn't matter how brave anyone is, if they don't know where to go or what to do.

The line has broken; _many_ lines have broken, and everything is a confusion of noise. Thanatos turns to see the legion’s standard bearer fall, the splash of red fabric topple. To see an enemy soldier take it.

Thanatos grabs a bow from a fallen archer, an arrow. He draws, only for his view to be blocked by the fighting.

Standards are important.

There is a horse, panicked, bereft of rider from the enemy cavalry charge that started the cascade of failure. Thanatos grabs loose reins, pulls it down, soothes it. He swings himself up with the arrow in his mouth. Guides the horse in a circle with his legs once.

He can see up here; he is not the only one who has noticed the legionary standard fall.

The horse isn't used to being guided with only knees and heels; it is not like the horses at home. Thanatos holds the reins in one hand, sets it after the quickly fleeing soldier.

Lets go of the reins, knocks the arrow, draws—

 _release_.

It's as easy as shooting a grouse from the sky; a laugh escapes his chest before he can smother it. The arrow punches through armor, sends the thief to the ground. Thanatos drops the bow and hangs off the side of the horse

( _he is eight and they are seeing who can pick up a coin from the ground the smoothest; his knuckles bleed red but he wins because he does not let his horse slow_ )

and snatches the standard up, easy-easy- _easy_.

(It feels free. It feels like _home_.)

He is a target like this, but he does not dismount.

Standards are _important_ \--he is not a target just for the enemy.

He rides back, standard a splash of red and gold and _visible_ , and finds the remnants of the front line. He does not need a weapon; he has a horse. He creates a space, a home away from home; the line reforms, a centurion he does not know finds him.

He does not remember much after that. He rarely remembers the details of any battle, but this one—

for a moment, he felt like he was home.

**10.**

They win. Somehow. Thanatos never quite understands how victories happen; his view is not a good one for it. He is not an officer of any sort; he is a soldier who goes where he is told and fights where he is told and who listens to what he is told.

He is bone tired when he dismounts, legs unsteady. He has not ridden a horse in too long; all of him is half on fire. He is swarmed, immediately; more people saw him than he realized--more recognized him. He lost his helmet, and his white hair, still, always, sticks out.

(He would not trade the feeling for anything.)

He wants to get his armour off. He wants to scrape the grime from his skin. He desperately wants to shove his head in a bucket of water. He wants, if he is very honest, a drink. He knows he needs, before any of that, to clean his equipment.

A runner finds him before he can do any of it.

“You’re wanted in the command tent,” the runner says.

Thanatos does not groan; he does what he is told, though he feels like he might collapse.

There are several people there. Some he knows--officers he has been under, the ones he is under now--but he can only recognize the others ranks by their cloaks, the fibula pinning them.

The prince.

Thanatos keeps his mouth shut and he kneels.

He is not sure he is going to be able to get back up again.

(He does not notice the prince’s eyes, lingering. He is too tired.)

(He tells himself he is too tired.)

He does not, in fact, manage to stand back up on his own.

The prince is the one who offers his hand.

“You are from Cathonia,” the prince says; his voice is mellower here than when he rides down the line delivering those brief words before a battle.

It is not a question; Thanatos does not answer. He keeps his eyes down.

Thanatos focuses on the ground under his feet. He does not focus on the feel of calluses, of a hand slightly bigger than his own, of the strength that has helped him find his feet again.

He does not focus on the loss when Prince Ares lets go.

“Why not the auxiliary? We are always in need of archers.”

“I did not want to be only an archer, your Highness,” Thanatos says, because it was a question.

( _He is eight and his hands are covered in blood._

_“Easy, easy,” the prince says, slipping the knife from his hands._

_“It’s over,” the prince says, petting his hair. “You fought well.”_ )

The prince’s gaze lingers; Thanatos’ skin is dark from a lifetime under the sun. It hides the heat beginning to creep up the back of his neck. He can see the prince’s cloak, red.

Thanatos makes a fist so he does not grab it.

“Go,” the prince says, and Thanatos does.

(He does not let himself notice the feel of eyes lingering on his back.)

**11.**

_Things will change._

_Thanatos does not care. He does not understand politics--he understands someone tried to kill his mother for wanting to talk to the prince. He understands the prince took a blow meant for her. He understands the prince saved his mother’s life._

_“I owe you a debt yet,” Prince Ares says. “You saved my life. Are you sure there’s nothing else you want?”_

_There is not. There will never be. He only wants her safe._

**12.**

He gets promoted again. A guard commander, and the only solace is that he is not directly in charge of anyone on a battlefield.

(He knows he will one day have to be, to get closer to the prince.)

His reputation grows after he rescues the standard. He prefers not to talk about it.

He keeps his mouth shut; he listens. He does not give his opinion unless he is asked, and he is rarely asked.

It is easier, as a guard commander, to hear the officers talk. He listens and he learns as much as he can, always, because there is always something to learn.

**13.**

By the time he is made optio, he knows every person in his centuria, servants and soldiers both. He knows what they love and what they miss and what they fear. He keeps his mouth shut.

Seven years.

He reads when they aren’t campaigning, when they’re back at the capital waiting. He learns how to play latrons; he is terrible at it, and then he is better, and then he has to be careful so people don’t refuse to play against him at all.

He sees the prince more; he does not speak with him.

(He still, always, wants to grab Prince Ares’ red cloak.

He still, always, curls his hands into fists so he does not.)

He goes out with the other officers when asked, and he is asked because everyone knows he keeps his mouth shut. He suspects he knows more secrets than anyone else. He wishes he could tell anyone his.

(That’s not true. He only wants to tell one person, and he will never be able to.)

He is introduced to nobles and council members and senators and people with wealth to buy the status they don’t have. He is taken to bath houses and to watch the gladiators and to see plays put on. He is taken to brothels he is not particularly interested in, but he goes anyway because it is expected and because he does what he is told.

He chose this.

(He always chooses men when they go to brothels.

The others pretend not to notice how his preferences skew towards men just a bit bigger than him, men with slight smiles and brown eyes that almost look red when the light hits them just right. Men with soft voices and precise speech, and men who play at something like nobility because Thanatos asks them to.

Perhaps he has told his brothers in arms his secret the only way he knows how. He’s never been good with words; he only knows how to show the feeling in his breast.)

Seven years.

**14.**

It is his eighth year and they are near Cathonia and he stares at the ridge of mountains on the horizon every sunset. He thinks about how easy it would be to walk away. He thinks about how, on the other side, are fields that ripple in the breeze. It is early summer and the heat is still kind and the fields will be bloody with poppies. He thinks about a language he isn’t sure he remembers how to speak anymore. He thinks of his mother. He thinks of all the apologies he owes.

He stares at the sunset and the mountains and

( _“Thanatos!” Hypnos yells. “Wait for me!”_

 _“Stop being slow,” Thanatos yells back. He laughs as his twin swears, kicks his horse into a gallop. His bow is in his hand, beautiful and comforting, and the sky is endlessly blue. He can hear the sound of his twin’s horse behind him, catching up._ )

he misses

( _“You must be more sure,” Mother says. “A skittish horse will take no comfort from a skittish rider.”_

 _“I don’t want to hurt her,” Thanatos says, nervous. It makes Mother smile; he loves his mother’s smile. It is like a sliver of the moon; it is like a secret, shared only with him._ )

home.

He thinks he misses it more than he fears what they will think when they see him. After this campaign, he thinks. He’ll request leave to go home. He knows he could; he never has.

(What if choosing to follow was the wrong choice?)

**15.**

Twelve years and he’s a centurion, himself. He does as he has always done--he makes sure he knows the names of every other centurion, their optiones. He makes sure he knows which the men don’t like, which the men do. He makes sure he knows all the men in his centuria. He learns the names of the auxiliaries assigned to his centuria.

He picks an optio, himself. He picks someone the men trust.

Best does not only mean skilled with a weapon.

He listens more than he orders, but twelve years means something here. It is near halfway to retirement. He doesn’t see the point to barking orders. He has been here twelve years; he gives orders and they are done because that is how the legion has always worked.

(He does not notice he gives orders and they are done because people _trust_ him; other people do.)

(The prince smiles when his eyes linger, now.)

Thanatos sees the prince more; it makes the emotion that has twisted in his chest both better and worse. It makes it so he can ignore it, because he must. Because sometimes he is in meetings and looking at maps. Because even more rarely he is asked his opinion on strategy.

It makes it so his dreams burn; he knows much more than he did at thirteen.

(He wants, desperately, to know what the prince’s voice sounds like when it breaks from pleasure.)

**16**.

It is noticed, quickly, that his lines are always the last to break, the first to reform.

He gets asked how he does it.

He doesn’t know how to explain it.

It’s listening. It’s a love of standards, those that clatter and those that flutter. It’s trust in orders that he gets from a prince he has spent years trying to express the feeling trapped in his chest to. It is learning every moment, every day, always, so that when there are no orders he might still have some sort of worth.

He has always been poor at words.

It is not very long before he is put in the first cohort, after that.

The first cohort, the best cohort, the most experienced.

Prince Ares’ favourite. His vanguard of choice, nearly always.

Thanatos does not allow himself to think of it. He does not allow himself to think of how he will see the prince more. He does not allow himself to feel, for a moment, a sense of peace.

It is more than he dreamed might happen.

(He still doesn’t know if the choice was right; he was fifteen when he chose and it’s been thirteen years now. He hopes it was.)

He watches the prince’s cloak flutter in the breeze and sometimes he does not even feel the need to grab it. Sometimes, it is not Thanatos who averts his eyes, first.

Perhaps he does feel a little peace.

**17.**

Thanatos gets back to his tent after a battle one day to find a horse--a white mare like the ones from home.

“What is this?” he asks, though he can see, very clearly, it is a horse.

“A gift from the prince, sir,” the soldier says.

Thanatos lets the horse smell his hand, pets the side of her face. He does not know what to say, nor what to do. He did not lead his men any different than he ever has; he does not think the battle was anything of note.

“Go,” Thanatos says to the soldier.

He cleans his equipment first, always. He reads reports, he makes reports. He listens to more reports. He gets the list of who is injured, then he gets enough grime off the surgeons won’t throw him out of the medical tents and goes to visit those who were injured. He comes back, makes sure someone has fed the horse, then he goes inside his tent and properly cleans.

The battle is won. It is night and dark except for the moon. He is in a tunic and his hair is still white; he still sticks out. It is a relief; he will not need to wear his cloak, too. It is hot--the summer is not kind.

The horse has a proper saddle like from home, not one of the awful Olympian ones, and a bitless bridle.

“Tell Optio Thalis I am going out,” Thanatos tells a soldier.

He wishes he had a bow.

He will take this--a horse from a home he is too afraid to visit, that knows what it is to be ridden and guided with only legs.

It is more than enough. All of this.

It must be.

(He wishes he could say thank you; he will settle for simply continuing to show it as he has for the last fourteen years of his life.

Ares is still a prince; Thanatos is still, always, only a soldier.)

**18.**

He asks to go home.

He is the second of the six centurions of the first cohort; the only one who can give him leave is Prince Ares.

(The prince has given him a white horse that does not need reins; the prince has given him a bow that is compact and beautiful and has a wolf painted down the length. The prince’s gaze lingers, and sometimes Thanatos does not look away.

He is almost at peace.)

“Fifteen years, and you’ve never asked once,” Prince Ares says.

It is not a question; Thanatos does not answer.

But he does not avert his eyes, either.

They are both of them older. Prince Ares' temper flares less; he has a consort that he sometimes does not because she is married to someone else, and he has a sister he made queen so he could continue to enjoy war and not worry about a court left without a ruler. He has not taken anyone to his bed but his sometimes consort in years now, and that has caused rumours, too.

Thanatos pretends not to notice how neatly the timeline pairs with saving the standard, all those years ago. It does not mean anything. It cannot.

But it makes him a little bold, sometimes.

“Of course you can go,” Prince Ares says. “Only come back. I will be missing the best of my men without you.”

It is not a question, but Thanatos allows himself to answer anyway.

“I am hardly the best,” Thanatos says. And then, “Thank you, your Highness.”

Prince Ares chuckles.

“Go,” he says.

Thanatos does; he dresses warm and packs light. There are outposts on the way. Cathonia is not so remote now. The kingdom is big, and the roads well maintained. He brings his dagger; he leaves his sword and in its place attaches the quiver.

The bow is comfortable in his hand and he has a horse that he can guide without his hands. He will go home, and then come back.

He has apologies he needs to make.

**19.**

There are no poppies this time of year, but the plains still ripple. The start of a town around Lord Hades’ home is now a town proper. Thanatos gets lost in it until he hears a familiar voice in a square; it feels like he has been punched. It feels like he will never be able to breathe again.

“ _Hypnos_.”

He has no idea how his twin hears him over all the noise, but he does. He turns, sees Thanatos, and Thanatos thinks he has never been so happy to see Hypnos’ sleepiness break for fury.

“ _You_ ,” Hypnos spits, and then, “Oh. You got the mare.” And then, “ _You_ ,” all fury again.

It has been sixteen years since the last time Thanatos wept, alone and leaving the only home he knew. Now he is weeping in a public square leading a horse with a bow clutched in his hand. He feels like he is eight, hands covered in blood, as his twin he has not seen in years closes the distance; he cannot see for the salt stinging his eyes.

“You are the _worst_ brother in _existence_ ,” Hypnos says, grabbing the front of his tunic, and then he pulls Thanatos into a hug.

******

“--and Zagreus left _too_ and came back with his _mother_ , can you believe? Her name’s Persephone, you’ll--honestly, I have no idea what you’ll think of _anything_ , anymore. Charon will want to see you, you can’t leave again until he gets back, you can’t leave again without saying goodbye, I _still_ can’t believe you left without saying goodbye! Not even to me!”

“I’m sorry,” Thanatos says. It is the only thing he has managed to say.

They are sitting on a bench in a public park that apparently Lady Persephone had commissioned. The mare is grazing on grass that is short and green and odd here.

“ _Sixteen years_ ,” Hypnos says, because he has been repeating it.

“I’m sorry,” Thanatos says, again.

“They’re talking about making Zagreus lord. He’s changed a lot. He changed a lot when you left, and again when he went and found his mother. Mother thinks he’ll do all right at it, even.”

 _Mother_.

Sixteen years of cutting his hair.

Hypnos' hair is long and it pulls all his curls loose; he has it braided and bound up, because he has not cut it. Thanatos’ hair could look like his, if he had stayed.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, helpless.

“At least you sent the money back,” Hypnos finally says. “So we knew you were alive.”

“What?” Thanatos asks.

“You sure took your time, didn’t you? I mean, fine, I know the first year was training, but another five years after that?”

The standard. The horse and the single shot and

( _he is eight and they are showing off for the prince and seeing who can pick up a coin the smoothest; Thanatos wins because he does not let his horse slow, hangs off the side and scrapes his knuckles bloody._ )

grabbing the standard.

“I’m sorry,” Thanatos says.

“Is that all you know how to say?” Hypnos asks, peering at his face. “Not that I’m complaining, you _should_ be sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

Hypnos heaves a sigh, grabs Thanatos by the wrist.

“Let’s go home, so at least you can tell the rest of everyone, too.”

******

“Look who I found,” Hypnos says in the main hall.

There is silence. Thanatos keeps his eyes on the tile beneath his feet.

He spent a year training; he spent fifteen years fighting. He has been stabbed and faced arrows raining down and horses charging the front line, and he has never once wanted to run so much as he does now in this moment as he hears his mother rise from her chair. Hypnos has his wrist; he stares at his brother’s slender fingers wrapped tight so he cannot. His shoulders curl in. He has no more tears to cry but his chest aches as if he might manage to shed their ghosts.

“Thanatos,” Mother says, voice worn with age. “My child.” Hypnos lets go, and she pulls Thanatos into her arms, one hand gentle at the back of his head; he presses his face into her shoulder and shakes.

He cannot cry, but the sobs still ache.

“Welcome home,” she says, holding him.

He clings to her as if he is eight, discovering for the first time that someone might kill her.

(He has always been eight, forever, since that moment.)

“I’m sorry,” he says, tries to say. He will never be able to tell her anything else. He has always been terrible at words. Words have always been what Hypnos is good at.

“I know,” she murmurs. “I know. Hush.”

Her hair has begun to go white while he was gone. It will make the family resemblance stronger, and still Thanatos mourns he has missed--everything.

“I wish I had realized sooner,” she says, as if she is at fault for any of Thanatos’ choices. He shakes his head, face still pressed to her shoulder, but the words won’t come.

******

Eventually, they move to her rooms. Food and wine are brought. Hypnos sits next to him, tears apart bread and forces Thanatos to eat it while he leans into Thanatos’ side.

Eventually, Zagreus comes by. He looks--uncertain he should even be there, but Mother waves him in and Thanatos owes him apologies too.

They were friends, once.

The three of them talk. Thanatos sits and lets the noise of it wash over him. He is exhausted. He thinks he will sleep a week. He thinks he can’t--to sleep would be to waste what little time he has with them.

At some point, he wakes because Hypnos moves. They are still talking. He manages, barely, to focus on Zagreus.

“I’m sorry, Zag,” he mumbles.

The conversation stops. It is so hard, keeping his eyes open.

“I’m just glad you came back,” Zagreus finally says.

He goes back to sleep.

**20.**

He will have to go back. But not yet.

“You used to talk more,” Zagreus says.

“Did I?” Thanatos can’t remember, like how he can barely remember his mother tongue. The words slip when he thinks about them too closely. Their tongue isn’t Olympia’s.

“Maybe I’m misremembering.”

They are riding. The air is crisp, leaning towards cold, the sun bright and gentle with autumn nearly done. Thanatos has still not named the mare; he knows he should. It's bad luck, riding a horse with no name.

They are riding. It makes it less awkward when Thanatos stays silent.

(He is used to, he realizes, the legion. There are always voices, there are always people who want his ear. It is disorienting here with the space not filled with tents and bodies and noise, with a sky that is forever blue and no sign of smoke.

But still home. One of them.)

******

There is always someone with him, here. As if they’re afraid he might slip off again. He doesn’t blame them. He did it once before.

(It is so much better than being alone.)

******

Charon comes back a week later.

He is the easiest to be around, after Hypnos.

(Hypnos is his twin; Hypnos fills all the silence Thanatos leaves and then settles into half-doze quiets leaned against Thanatos’ shoulder that it is the purest creature comfort Thanatos has ever known, will ever know.)

Charon does not expect talk. He was never much given to it when Thanatos was younger and saw him only a little. Charon trades and it takes him away, but he always comes back. Very rarely, Hypnos could beg a story from him, but Charon is even worse at words than Thanatos and his stories mostly just put Hypnos to sleep.

Charon does not mind Thanatos’ silences. They play latrons, sometimes, and Charon does not mind when Thanatos wins every game. Charon does not mind all that half-formed thoughts Thanatos does put to words with him.

(One more week. He owes them that much.)

******

He stays two.

It is not enough time, but if he stays longer he is going to turn into a ghost.

“I’m sorry,” he tells them.

“Just don’t take sixteen years to come back this time, all right?” Hypnos says.

“I won’t,” Thanatos promises.

He embraces each of them, even Zagreus’ mother he does not really know, and then he gets on the white mare he was given as a gift and he starts to ride towards home again--one that is louder and always full of voices, always full of bodies, where he does not have the endless possibility of a clear sky that leaves him unable to choose anything.

They are both home; they neither are.

(One of them has a prince he still hasn’t managed to finish expressing his feelings to.)

**21.**

It is not quite spring; the legion is at rest. There will be training, soon, but Thanatos is still back ahead of drills and the breaking in of new recruits. He could easily wait another week.

Thanatos reports his return anyway.

"I expected you gone longer," Prince Ares says.

It is not a question; Thanatos does not need to answer.

"I trust they are well?"

"Yes, your Highness," he says. Thanatos wants to ask about a bow painted with a wolf and a white mare his brother recognized and money he never sent back to his family but they received anyway. He does not.

“You may go,” the prince says, eyes lingering.

Thanatos waits a beat more than he usually would.

(He wants to ask—)

He goes.

**22.**

It doesn’t matter, finding words for the feeling in Thanatos’ chest.

He goes home in the winters now.

(Hypnos and Mother and Charon and Zagreus; riding through fields that ripple in the wind, poppyless. Endless silences that are broken by one voice, two.)

He returns home before spring starts.

(Prince Ares and the legion and a thousand secrets he’ll take to his grave, because he can’t even tell his own, let alone anyone else’s. Endless noise that is broken by indulging in rides on a gift he still has not given a name, skies that drift with campfire smoke.)

It doesn’t matter, finding the words.

(Thanatos has never been good with them.)

Except it does.

**23.**

It is a small excursion, only meant to visit a border fort in Cathonia and return.

It is a small force. They are following the road through the plains. Thanatos is riding near the front, helmet off, enjoying the wind on his face, the way it tugs his cloak. It is home and home--marching through Cathonia with his men and his prince, fields bloody with poppies, riding a horse that he does not need his hands to guide with his sword on his hip.

It is peace.

A scout reports back with word of a sizable force of mounted riders, armoured, headed their way. Spears, not just bows.

(Not all the tribes agreed with Mother. Some of them left. Cathonia is large, and the interior plains are unforgiving.

Olympia never fought the plains tribes. Mother saw to that, and Thanatos sealed it when he told Prince Ares all he wanted was his mother to be safe.)

“What do you think?” Prince Ares asks Thanatos.

Thanatos thinks the tribes do not make shows like that without a reason. Thanatos thinks that the interior tribes almost never come near the roads. Thanatos thinks that they are ill-equipped to deal with a tribe; they have no cavalry and even if they did, Olympian cavalry does not fight the way the plains tribes do.

Thanatos thinks he would prefer, deeply, to have his bow over a sword.

“I think it is too obvious,” Thanatos finally says. And then, “The line cannot break.”

Prince Ares nods, and then he begins to give orders.

“I will go and see,” Thanatos says.

Prince Ares goes still.

“Come back,” he finally says.

Thanatos gets his bow before he goes.

******

Buried under seventeen years of service is all the knowledge Thanatos was given as the son of Nyx before and after the Olympians came. He sits on his white mare at the top of the gentle hill and he looks at a force that is much too small to be armed for a fight as they are. They are not all of the same tribe--three, he thinks. Four. His cloak is red and his horse is white as his hair and he is sitting at the top of a hill, but they do not bother him. They are being loud and singing and they are cutting a swath through the poppies that would catch the attention of a half-blind grandmother.

It _is_ too obvious.

He spins his horse around and heads back.

Hears ramshorns and cornu and urges her faster.

******

It is terrifying to have a horse bear down. Thanatos knows it; Thanatos has been on both sides of that charge. The tribe warriors will, too--they have an aim that will find the gaps between shields, spears that will exploit that as they charge, and they only need one crack to split the force apart.

These are the best of the best of the prince’s legion. They will not crack.

Four tribes circling like hawks and a plain that stretches bloody and a centuria with nowhere to properly run.

They cannot crack.

(They cannot hold forever.)

Thanatos spots a signaler raising their ramshorn to blow orders from the safety behind the warriors riding circles around the ring of shields, knocks an arrow, and fires.

He does not miss; the signaler falls. It gets him attention. It gets him _seen_.

Standards matter; Thanatos’ cloak is red and bloody as the poppies, horse white as his hair, and his bow has a wolf snarling down its length.

Thanatos snags the horn dropped from the signaler's grip by its strap, knuckles scraping bloody, and stays hanging on the side of his horse as he rides through the mass of warriors. The horse riders shout and turn on him--but they will not be willing to let the horses collide. They will not be willing to risk shooting each other.

He is Nyx’s son; he still knows all the calls. He dreams of them, sometimes, the way some of his dreams are in a language he barely speaks anymore. He hopes they have not changed.

He raises the horn to his lips and sounds a call to fall back. He pulls himself back up, guides his own horse back into the other warriors again, and sounds the call again.

A beat, hesitant, and then someone else sounds it.

A beat, hesitant, and then some of the warriors firing on the centuria stop circling to ride towards his call.

He slings the horn over a shoulder and keeps riding. He readies his bow again, checks he has not lost any arrows then draws one, feather brushing his cheek. He will not be able to do this long--already he is being surrounded--but he is

( _eight and his hands are bloody and the coin shines so bright as he holds it aloft_ )

more reckless than they; they veer their horses aside first even as he releases the arrow, takes another down from their saddle.

He grabs the horn and sounds the call to fall back a third time, hears it picked up by two more horns on the other side of the centuria, and he cannot help grinning. He can hear the yells to ignore the signal, keeps himself low as he rides between the warriors so they act as shields between him and arrows that very desperately want to unseat him. He manages to break through the circle of them to see the shields so like a turtle sat on the plains.

He sits up, cloak rippling behind him bloody, and raises the horn again.

The call, this time, is Olympian-- _volley fire_.

The legion is well-trained, and the men here are the best of the best of the legion. The arrows are not as true as his; it does not matter. He can still hear the scream of warriors and horses both, the sound of a few horses crashing to the earth.

Thanatos races around the curve of the line, eyes fixed on the tribal warriors realizing what has happened, then peels away from the line to gallop back towards horses and spears and arrows. He needs to find the four in command of the tribes here; he needs to unseat _them_ before he is.

He lets the horn drop, grabs another arrow, and looks for the horsetail plumes he will need to take.

******

He is not sure when or how the line cracks, only that it does.

He knows his horse goes out from under him and he lands in the dirt, rolls back to his feet. His bow is gone from his hand in the fall; he grabs his sword instead.

His ears are still ringing from the fall.

He knows there is the sound of yelling and cornu and ramshorns both, knows he does not know what any of that noise means anymore. He knows that there is an arrow lodged in his thigh and one in his side, knows they will be worse later. He knows he has killed two chief’s children his age. He knows that he will die here because he has no horse and no bow and he is in the thick of them and they _hate_ him.

He fights anyway.

( _He is eight and there is a knife in his hands and there is a man trying to kill the prince that saved his mother._ )

His leg shakes as he steps aside a charge; his side screams white as he slashes the horse’s legs, takes it down. Thrusts through a neck, rises again, turns.

( _He is eight and the people he loves can be taken from him._ )

A horse bolts by, riderless; he grabs it. He does not have a bow. His side is white and warm and wet. He swings himself up, can _see_ , spots a horsetail plume, spots Ares’ crest, both on foot, both fighting, and he kicks the horse with the leg that is still working towards them.

( _He is eight and his hands are covered in blood but his mother is safe, the prince is safe, and there is an emotion he does not understand unfolded in his chest that he will never find the words for._ )

There is shouting, a cornu. Noise. He has a ramshorn; he grabs it and sounds a call as loud as he can. He does not know if it means anything, only that is noise that will be _heard_. Will be _seen_.

( _He is eight and covered in blood and the only one who does not flinch is Ares._ )

An arrow slams into Ares from behind and Thanatos loses sight of him as he falls in the moments before Thanatos reaches him; the white threatening to bleed him dry ignites into a fury so pure it devours the pain and leaves him whole. He grabs a spear from a body, tears it up, bearing down a chief’s child that has made the terrible error of being before Thanatos in this moment.

He is thirty-three, eighteen years a knife to keep those he loves safe, and he has _failed_.

He does not remember much, after that.

**24.**

He wakes in a tent, leg and side both agony.

He is alive, he is in a tent, they won.

Remembers Ares, falling.

They did not win.

“Ares,” he says, trying to push himself up.

******

He wakes the next time in a bed, all of his edges blurred and the pain a dull ache.

There is a surgeon changing a bandage at his thigh. Thanatos stares, tries to remember his name. Everything feels--distant.

Remembers Ares, falling.

“Ares,” he says, thinks he says, but the syllables slur together.

The surgeon looks up, frowns at him.

“Of _course_ you have a tolerance,” he says, irritated. “Go back to sleep.”

He needs to see Ares.

Everything is distant and soft, blurred. He tries to get up, gets pushed back in the bed and into sleep.

******

His dreams twist, blur together with waking.

“I have to tell him,” Thanatos says, thinks he says, but he is not sure which language he said it in. He gets ignored, either way.

Falls asleep again.

**25.**

“Get out of my medical ward,” Apollo snaps at the men giving Thanatos reports and they scatter, more afraid of him than they are of abandoning Thanatos.

Thanatos sits by Ares’ bed and does not look up at him, hand gripping the edge of the blanket.

He still aches, but he is alive. He will live.

(Will he, if Ares dies instead of him?)

His knuckles are white gripping the blanket. His side hurts from being upright.

“Bed,” Apollo says.

Thanatos swallows. He does not look up from the blanket in his fist.

(He failed. Eighteen years of learning, and he still failed.)

“You’re useless if you injure yourself more,” Apollo says.

Thanatos lets go.

******

“ _Bed_.”

“No.”

“I still have plenty of poppy seed.”

Thanatos goes.

******

“Bed,” Thanatos says before Apollo can. It gets him a laugh, singular.

He does not move.

“You’re both idiots,” Apollo tells him, but he does not make Thanatos leave Ares’ side this time.

**26.**

Ares is pale and fevered and he has not woken that Thanatos knows.

(It was Ares who broke the line first, when Thanatos took the arrow to his side.

Thanatos wants to strangle him.

Ares is a prince; Thanatos is only a soldier, still, always, and not even a good one.

He _failed_.)

Thanatos sits at his bedside and he grips Ares’ blanket the way he never did his cloak.

“Don’t go,” he begs, every time he wakes, every time Apollo forces him to go walk, every time he cannot stay at Ares’ side.

At some point, the camp prefect arrived, and now Thanatos has no reports at all--just this. The sound of quiet breathing, healing aches that will give him new scars, and the press of every word he has never found a way to say choking him.

The words should not matter; they do.

He is terrible at words.

“Don’t go,” he begs, and the tears are salt and hot and the blanket gripped in his hand is not red at all.

**27.**

The fever breaks; Ares does not wake.

**28.**

Thanatos does not know how long it has been. He knows that more soldiers have arrived, he knows more officers have arrived. He knows there are discussions he should be at, that he should listen to.

He listens to Ares’ breath, steadier but still so quiet.

He presses his hands flat on the blanket, grips the edge. Tries to release.

He does not want to listen. He wants to be the one listened to, just once, but the one he wants to hear sleeps and sleeps and Thanatos knows the longer he sleeps the less likely he is to wake.

He does not know how long it has been.

He looks at his hands on wool that is not red. He has so many words choking his chest and none of them are right.

“Don’t go,” he whispers.

It is quiet but for Ares’ soft breathing.

Thanatos rubs the edge of the blanket between his fingers. He wishes he had grabbed Ares’ cloak years ago. He wishes he had said anything sooner. He wishes he was good at words, but he gave them up when he left home and now he is stuck with two languages and neither fit his tongue.

He wants, just once, to be the one to speak a secret out loud.

“I gave up blue skies for you,” he says. He swallows, grips tight. It is not enough. None of it.

He wants, so desperately, to get to say goodbye, if it must be goodbye.

“I gave up everything I was for you,” he says.

He wants this not to be goodbye.

“I don’t know how to say it,” he admits, eyes stinging salt and face wet with tears that splatter on the blanket. “I never knew how to say it.”

A hand, just a little larger than his, slips over one of his; Thanatos freezes.

“You did not have to,” Ares says, voice rough with sleep.

Thanatos stares at the hand on his, the thumb rubbing gentle on his skin. He cannot look up.

“Thanatos,” Ares says.

“You’re—”

“--not dead.”

Thanatos looks up; Ares is looking at him, a gaze that has always lingered.

“Apollo,” he starts, helpless.

“Can eat arsenic,” Ares says. “You have saved my life twice over.” He stops, takes a deeper breath. “Please, just once, take something for yourself.”

Thanatos hesitates another moment. Ares is watching him, eyes clear. They are both of them older than they were and Thanatos is so tired of looking away.

He lets go of the blanket and crawls under it.

The bed is narrow and Thanatos is terrified he will upset an injury he does not know about, but time did not stop just because Ares was sleeping. His wounds are like Thanatos’--beginning to scar--and they end up legs tangled together and forehead to forehead. Thanatos cups Ares’ neck the way he has dreamed since he was thirteen, feels a steady pulse under his hand he has always wanted to touch.

To taste.

Ares’ eyes are clear and the skin at the corners crinkles as he smiles, his hand at Thanatos’ neck.

“You are,” Ares says, still smiling, “infuriatingly slow.”

“I am sorry,” Thanatos says. “Can I…”

“Yes,” Ares says.

Thanatos leans in, kisses him, hand at his neck tightening. Ares’ lips are dry, and he presses into the kiss with a noise that makes Thanatos press back harder--he has wanted this nearly all his life. Ares laughs as they break apart, both of them needing air, a breathless sound that has Thanatos pressing kisses to the corner of his mouth, his jaw.

“Can I…?” Thanatos starts to ask, stops as Ares drags him back in for another kiss.

Thanatos laughs shaky as they break apart; Ares is grinning.

“Yes,” Ares says.

“You don’t know—”

“Here,” Ares says, grabbing Thanatos’ wrist at his neck, pulling it down. “You are,” he kisses Thanatos, “terrible,” another kiss, his skin hot under Thanatos’ hand as he drags it down; Thanatos wants, desperately, to touch all of him, to map out every bump and dip and line of his body.

“Terrible at talking,” Ares finishes.

“You just woke, you—”

Ares lets go of Thanatos’ hand, reaches up with both to cup Thanatos’ face. His hands are calloused and warm and _home_.

“Stop talking,” Ares says, eyes dark.

“Apollo will kill me,” Thanatos says, and then presses in, lets his hands roam greedy over bare skin. Traces scars he knows and ones he doesn’t; feels Ares shiver as Thanatos presses his fingers into the small of his back, Ares’ hips jerking forward.

This will not last so long as either of them will want, Thanatos can tell already, and he wonders dizzy what things might have been like if they (he) had not waited so _long_.

They shift, blanket slipping down and off and the air cool and Thanatos worries about that, Ares only just woke, but he also has all of Ares bare under him, grinning up at him lazily. Ares sighing into his touch as Thanatos maps his collarbone, the lines of his chest--first with his fingers, then his mouth. Bites a kiss and then does it again and again and again because it makes Ares’ tip his head back, makes him laugh and grind against Thanatos, cock leaking precum.

“Awful,” Ares laughs breathless, nails digging into Thanatos’ shoulders as Thanatos bites his throat, lingers and makes sure it will leave a mark. He pulls up to examine the bruise, flushes as he catches sight of Ares’ smile.

“Go on,” Ares says, resting his hand at Thanatos’ neck. “Show me.”

They don’t have oil; they don’t need oil for what Thanatos wants.

He wants to hear Ares’ voice wrecked, wants to taste him, wants to know the feel of him on his tongue; wants, more than anything, to have him for himself. He kisses as he runs his hands down Ares’ chest, his ribs, kisses the dips of his hips. Ares’ hands grab his hair and he stops, looks up.

“No,” he says, grabbing a wrist.

Ares lets go, pupils blown wide, and his laugh is so much shakier.

Thanatos grazes his teeth over the thin skin at Ares’ hip, closes his eyes and drinks in the sound of Ares’ laugh breaking, shifting into a groan. Breathes in the smell of him, drags the tip of his nose along the underside of Ares’ cock.

Stops and glares as Ares grabs his hair again.

Ares lets go.

“Gods,” Ares breathes, “what did I ever do to deser—”

Thanatos swallows the head of his cock, purrs pleased and laps at precum as he hears Ares’ voice break, hears Ares’ twisting the sheet under them. Pins Ares’ hips to stop him bucking and starts to see how much of Ares’ cock he can swallow at once, for now.

Flicks his eyes up, watches the unsteady rise and fall of Ares’ chest, his throat left vulnerable as his head tips back. Feels all the strength beneath him shivering. He purrs again as he moves down, the head of Ares cock hitting the back of his throat, and the sound it pulls from Ares is ragged and beautiful and half a prayer.

“Thanatos,” Ares begs, then that laugh, again, that Thanatos loves, the joy of it, even like this. “Love, you are going to kill me.”

Thanatos smiles with his eyes, takes a breath through his nose, then lets his throat go lax and presses down, down, closes his eyes and hums in his chest when his nose presses against hair and skin and Ares is attempting to anger all the gods and more as he swears. Thanatos is drooling, just a bit, and Ares is coming up with new swears just for him as Thanatos hums again, swallows around the heavy weight in his mouth, his throat. Thanatos has never been happier, warm and pleased and he could stay still, just like this, while Ares comes undone begging him to _move_.

He does move; he has always listened well.

He moves slow and steady, which it turns out is not what Ares wants, but Thanatos has spent so much of his life wanting to know and Ares _said_ to show him.

“Thanatos,” Ares manages, voice shaking, his cock twitching as Thanatos swallows around him again a warning; Thanatos hums, gives the slightest nod he can, and pulls up enough he can taste it when Ares spills in his mouth.

Licks what leaks onto Ares’ skin up, greedy.

“Gods,” Ares says, exhausted. “I wish I wasn’t forty.”

Thanatos chuckles.

“Come here,” Ares says, lifting an arm, and Thanatos crawls back up. Fumbles to find the blanket and pulls it around them both. Then, seeing as Apollo is already going to kill him, steals one from the neighboring bed, too.

He presses his face into Ares’ neck, tangles their legs together again.

Swats at Ares’ hand before it slips down Thanatos’ belly to his half-stirred cock.

“I’m fine,” Thanatos says. It would take too long to get him aroused, and longer still for what Ares wants to offer. Thanatos doesn’t particularly care for it. He opens his eyes as Ares pulls away a little, finds Ares regarding him. “Really.”

“You used to go to an awful lot of brothels, as an optio,” Ares points out.

Thanatos laughs, flushes.

“I was dragged. I mostly just caught up on sleep.” He reaches up, pulls Ares back close again so he can press his face against his neck. Hear his pulse. Feel his warmth. “Like this,” he sighs.

Ares settles his arm around him, hums thoughtful as he strokes Thanatos’ back.

“If you are certain,” Ares says.

Thanatos nods. His tunic is a mess half stuck to his skin and Apollo is going to kill him, but he is warm and comfortable and _home_.

**29.**

Apollo does not kill him, but Thanatos is barred from stepping foot in the medical ward, which Apollo is quick to point out does not exclude someone dragging his half-dead corpse in.

Thanatos, for his part, accepts his punishment with much more grace than Ares. Thanatos is fairly certain at least half the fort heard the two of them screaming at each other, and pretends to not notice it was about his visitation rights.

**30.**

The early summer sun is still gentle, the sky endlessly blue. The fields ripple bloody with poppies and there is a horse under him that does not need his hands to guide it.

“Hypnos will probably try to kill you,” Thanatos comments as they ride along the well-kept road.

Ares laughs.

“He already tried once,” Ares says.

“I don’t think Cathonia is good for your health. Maybe we should have invited them to the capital.” Thanatos gives him a sideways glance, but Ares is smiling, pleased.

“And miss the sight of your thighs when you ride?” Ares asks, giving a pointed glance at Thanatos’ legs; Thanatos flushes. “I’m forty-two, love, not dead.”

They are, both of them, in tunics and red cloaks that tug in the breeze, both of them packed light because the kingdom is large and there are outposts the whole way.

It is an odd summer. The prince’s legion is at rest, men sent home with pay and bonuses on top of that. There are rumours in the capital the prince has settled down, though of course no one knows with whom. The speculation runs wild and Thanatos has enjoyed listening to the guesses.

He keeps his mouth shut. He has told the only person he wants to tell, and Ares will not tell unless Thanatos allows it.

Thanatos does not. He has always preferred to listen.

Thanatos is thirty-five and riding through fields rippling red and does not feel bereft of noise; Thanatos is thirty-five and with his prince and not paralyzed by the lack of smoke in the air.

He is thirty-five and finally, he is home.

**Author's Note:**

> you read it thank you please weep in the comments with me about how thanatos just needs to fucking learn to open his mouth and say ANYTHING.


End file.
